Re: [PATCH v2] selftests/mm: read memory information without popen

From: David Hildenbrand (Arm)

Date: Tue Aug 04 2026 - 08:29:26 EST


On 8/4/26 14:16, Warren Xiong wrote:
> read_memory_info() invokes two shell pipelines to obtain MemFree and
> Hugepagesize from /proc/meminfo. It does not check whether popen()
> returns NULL before passing the result to fgets(), and it does not call
> pclose() when fgets() fails.
>
> Open /proc/meminfo directly and obtain both values in a single pass.
> This removes the unchecked NULL path, closes the file on all paths, and
> avoids dependencies on external commands.
>
> The compaction test continues to pass after this change.
>
> Signed-off-by: Warren Xiong <warren.xiong@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> Changes in v2:
> - Replace the two boolean flags with a hit counter, as suggested by
> David Hildenbrand.
>
> v1: https://lore.kernel.org/1785720615-5826-1-git-send-email-warren.xiong@xxxxxxxxxx/
>
> tools/testing/selftests/mm/compaction_test.c | 38 +++++++++++++++-------------
> 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/compaction_test.c b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/compaction_test.c
> index 5b58258..30d4ace 100644
> --- a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/compaction_test.c
> +++ b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/compaction_test.c
> @@ -29,30 +29,34 @@ struct map_list {
>
> int read_memory_info(unsigned long *memfree, unsigned long *hugepagesize)
> {
> - char buffer[256] = {0};
> - char *cmd = "cat /proc/meminfo | grep -i memfree | grep -o '[0-9]*'";
> - FILE *cmdfile = popen(cmd, "r");
> + char buffer[256];
> + int found = 0;
> + FILE *file;
> + int ret = -1;
>
> - if (!(fgets(buffer, sizeof(buffer), cmdfile))) {
> - ksft_print_msg("Failed to read meminfo: %s\n", strerror(errno));
> + file = fopen("/proc/meminfo", "r");
> + if (!file) {
> + ksft_print_msg("Failed to open /proc/meminfo: %s\n",
> + strerror(errno));
> return -1;
> }
>
> - pclose(cmdfile);
> -
> - *memfree = atoll(buffer);
> - cmd = "cat /proc/meminfo | grep -i hugepagesize | grep -o '[0-9]*'";
> - cmdfile = popen(cmd, "r");
> -
> - if (!(fgets(buffer, sizeof(buffer), cmdfile))) {
> - ksft_print_msg("Failed to read meminfo: %s\n", strerror(errno));
> - return -1;
> + while (fgets(buffer, sizeof(buffer), file) && found != 2) {
> + if (sscanf(buffer, "MemFree: %lu kB", memfree) == 1 ||
> + sscanf(buffer, "Hugepagesize: %lu kB", hugepagesize) == 1)
> + found++;

Just as information: when proposing that I was assuming that we would never ever
have two times the same entry in /proc/meminfo, which i think we can reasonably
assume.

Thanks!

Acked-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@xxxxxxxxxx>

--
Cheers,

David